A combined experimental and numerical study of the behaviour of paperboard composites up to failure

Paperboard composites have been subjected to non–conventional inflation experiments using a novel instrumentation inspired by burst strength testers. The purpose is to understand the behaviour up to failure of strongly anisotropic and heterogeneous material samples under the loading condition more commonly experienced for instance by beverage packaging. The information collected by the exploited prototype equipment has been interpreted at the light of validated numerical models of the performed tests